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The most comprehensive analysis of the college football bowl bubble is back! For the tenth-straight season, I will be publishing weekly late season columns analyzing which teams will get bowl bids and which will not. Below, I have written a report for every team that has yet to be declared either bowl eligible or ineligible. Each week this list will be updated and new odds will be provided for each team. Please note that these odds only represent the chances that a particular team will get enough wins to be eligible to receive a bowl bid. They do not represent the odds a team has for actually receiving a bid. This discrepancy likely won’t affect the bowl chances for most teams, but as we saw two years ago with Mississippi State and North Texas, sometimes a squad can fall short of bowl eligibility and still garner a bowl bid at 5-7 based on APR, if all spots are not filled. All of the teams below are ordered in descending order of likelihood that they will become bowl eligible. As of now, there is one teams on the list with 1 predicted to attain bowl eligibility and 0 predicted to fall short. As of now, I’m projecting there to be 82 bowl eligible teams for 2018 (see full stats at the bottom of this entry). Keep in mind that there are a total of 78 bowl slots to be filled, so at this point, I am predicting four teams to become bowl eligible and not receive a bid. This list is updated through all games played on November 24th.

The most comprehensive analysis of the college football bowl bubble is back! For the tenth-straight season, I will be publishing weekly late season columns analyzing which teams will get bowl bids and which will not. Below, I have written a report for every team that has yet to be declared either bowl eligible or ineligible. Each week this list will be updated and new odds will be provided for each team. Please note that these odds only represent the chances that a particular team will get enough wins to be eligible to receive a bowl bid. They do not represent the odds a team has for actually receiving a bid. This discrepancy likely won’t affect the bowl chances for most teams, but as we saw two years ago with Mississippi State and North Texas, sometimes a squad can fall short of bowl eligibility and still garner a bowl bid at 5-7 based on APR, if all spots aren’t filled. One other thing to consider for this season’s projections is that several teams had games cancelled due to adverse weather early in the season. Some of these teams have rescheduled other games already (see NC State, East Carolina), which are of course included in this analysis, but for the teams that haven’t (see South Carolina, Virginia Tech), this analysis only includes their odds of making a bowl based on their 11 currently scheduled games. All of the teams below are ordered in descending order of likelihood that they will become bowl eligible. As of now, there are 24 teams on the list with 11 predicted to attain bowl eligibility and 13 predicted to fall short. As of now, I’m projecting there to be 82 bowl eligible teams for 2018 (see full stats at the bottom of this entry). Keep in mind that there are a total of 78 bowl slots to be filled, so at this point, I am predicting two teams to become bowl eligible and not receive a bid. This list is updated through all games played on November 17th.

For the tenth-straight season, I will be publishing weekly columns late in the season which analyze all of the FBS conference championship races. Like my bowl bubble watch, there is not really a column like this on any other mainstream college football site. Bolded teams have already clinched their division or conference. Italicized teams are my predicted champions of their respective conferences/divisions at this point in time. This list is updated through all games played on November 17, 2018.

ACC Coastal– Pittsburgh (The Panthers pull off one of the greatest in-season turnarounds you’ll ever see to somehow win the ACC Coastal. They started conference play by losing to the worst team in their division and then proceeded to go undefeated in ACC play.)

Big Ten East– Ohio State (As a result of their thrilling win over Maryland, the Bucks will play arch rival Michigan next Saturday for the Big Ten East Championship.)

Big Ten West– Northwestern (The Cinderella Cats are in the Big Ten Title Game! Now, they have a chance to spoil either Ohio State or MIchigan’s college football playoff hopes.)

Big 12– West Virginia/Texas (As long as the Horns beat Kansas on Friday, they will get to play in the Big 12 title game against the winner of West Virginia and Oklahoma. I’m predicting WVU wins that game at home thereby setting up an epic rematch of West Virginia and Texas.)

Pac-12 North– Washington (The Apple Cup will decide the Pac-12 North next Friday night, and because the Huskies have owned Wazzu in recent years, I am picking them to win that game to clinch a third straight Pac-12 North crown.)

Pac-12 South– Utah (The Utes are headed to the Pac-12 title game meaning that this division becomes the first in college football to have all of its members play in a conference championship game.)

SEC East– Georgia

SEC West– Alabama (The SEC Championship Game will be exactly what everyone expected and what everyone wanted to see after last year’s national title classic. Alabama and Georgia will play each other in postseason play again in Atlanta. This one should end up being a CFP play-in game.)

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AAC East– UCF(Please tell me how this team isn’t in consideration for the CFP playoff? They are by far the best team in the country.)

AAC West– Houston (The Cougars tried to give up this division by losing consecutive games to SMU and Temple earlier this month. However, after dismantling Tulane on Thursday, they got a huge break when Memphis beat SMU on Friday night. Now, Houston once again controls its own destiny and will clinch the AAC West if they beat Memphis on Friday. A loss in that game could setup a wild four-way tie at the top between Houston, Memphis, SMU, and Tulane in which Memphis would win.)

C-USA East– Florida International (As long as FIU beats Marshall at home next Saturday, they will win the division crown. If they falter, then Middle Tennessee will cinch the crown regardless of their result against UAB. )

C-USA West– UAB

MAC East– Buffalo (The Bulls made this division title race a lot more interesting by getting blown out in Athens, Ohio on Wednesday night. Nevertheless, they still just need to beat the lowly Falcons of Bowling Green on the Friday after Thanksgiving to clinch the MAC East crown. If they somehow stumble, Miami of Ohio and Ohio are still in contention. Miami would win the division if all three teams finished tied at the top.)

MAC West– Northern Illinois (The Huskies’ clinched the division as a result of Ball State’s shocking upset win over Western Michigan. The only thing more shocking than the result of that Ball State game was the crowd size. I counted 37 people on the television side of the field when they panned out for a wide view of Sheumann Stadium in the third quarter.)

MWC Mountain– Boise State (The Broncos battle with Utah State next Saturday will be a de facto division title game.)

MWC West– Fresno State(The Bulldogs knocked off the Aztecs on Saturday to clinch the division title for the second consecutive season.)

Sun Belt East– Appalachian State (The Mountaineers beat Georgia State this weekend to setup the Sun Belt game of the century between league powers Troy and Appalachian State. The winner becomes the division champ and I’m predicting App to win that one at home.)

Sun Belt West– Arkansas State (The Red Wolves need to beat Texas State next Saturday and then simultaneously have UL-Monroe beat arch rival UL-Lafayette in order to clinch the division. I am going to predict both of those things to happen to send Arkansas State to the first-ever Sun Belt Championship game.)